NEW DELHI(Agency): In a major gaffe by Congress workers, a large banner featuring the BJP candidate’s photograph, was put up at the venue where former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will hold a rally on Monday for the party’s nominee from Madhya Pradesh’s Mandla Lok Sabha constituency.
The poster which also featured pictures of top Congress leaders, was hastily removed by party workers. The photo of Union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste, the BJP candidate, was replaced with that of Congress leader Harvansh Singh. In Mandla, the grand old party has fielded Omkar Singh Markam against Kulaste; the latter is a six-term MP from here. Kulaste took the seat in the two previous general elections (2014, 2019) having earlier won it in four consecutive Lok Sabha polls (1996, 1998, 1999, 2004).
Madhya Pradesh has 29 parliamentary segments, of which 28 went to the BJP in 2019. Nakul Nath, son of Congress veteran and ex-Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, was the party’s only winning candidate, from his father’s Chhindwara bastion.
Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi’s Monday rally, which will be held at the Dhanora village in Mandla, will come a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mega roadshow in Jabalpur, attended by thousands of people.
The BJP currently holds power in the central state, where it was victorious in the assembly polls held late last year. The saffron party, however, replaced its long-time chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who held the position going into the elections, with Mohan Yadav, a first-time chief minister. Chouhan has been given Lok Sabha ticket from Vidisha.
(Courtesy: HT News)
